Goat Rodeo Sessions at Tanglewood, 8/15/13

By GREG HAYMES
LENOX, Mass. – The tickets for Thursday night’s concert at Tanglewood read, “The Goat Rodeo Show: Yo-Yo Ma and guests.” And since the master cellist has been a regular at the Lenox shed for 30 years now, the folks at Tanglewood could be forgiven for cashing in on his name recognition.
But it’s probably a mistake to single out Ma as the ensemble’s leader. And the musicians who surrounded him on stage for the Goat Rodeo Sessions were hardly mere “guests.” Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile (of the Punch Brothers and a recent MacArthur Foundation “genius” award recipient) stood to his left, and he was flanked on the right by bassist Edgar Meyer (equally at home in the worlds of classical and bluegrass music) and fab fiddler Stuart Duncan (of the Nashville Bluegrass Band).
They all seemed equal partners to the musical project, which was something of a homecoming, as they recorded their debut album together two summers ago at James Taylor’s nearby barn/studio. The recording earned them the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album earlier this year. Folk music? Hardly…
So then, what is it? It wasn’t classical music, although there were certainly classical elements in evidence during selections like the contemplative ballad “Franz & the Eagle.” And nobody would call it bluegrass, although “Fiddle Medley” and “Hill Justice” clearly echoed the high, lonesome sound of Appalachia. But there were also elements of jazz (especially in Meyer’s playing), folk (the exquisite “Helping Hand”) and electronic music (Thile’s mandolin blipping set against the long-bowing during “Parallax”).
Call it melting pot music if you must, when the music is this sublime – and played at this rarified technical level – why bother to categorize it at all?
Kicking off a limited summer tour, they were at their best when they fused all of those elements together, as on “Where’s My Bow,” which sounded something like what might have happened if Philip Glass and Bill Monroe had been invited to help Aaron Copland write “Hoe-Down.”
While each of the members was allowed ample opportunity to showcase their individual talents, the strength of the music came from the ensemble playing. No one played “the star.” And there were no “spotlight” selections, except perhaps when vocalist Aoife O’Donovan (of Crooked Still) joined the group to duet with Thile for a handful of tunes highlighted by “No One But You” (with Meyer on piano) and a delicate waltz interpretation of Bob Dylan’s “Farewell Angelina.”
And, yes, they did play some bona fide classical music – a sparkling rendition of movements 3 & 4 from Bach’s Gamba Sonata, No. 1 – almost as if to prove that they could do that, too, all night if they wanted…
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Goat Rodeo Sessions
featuring Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer and Stuart Duncan with Aoife O’Donovan
Where: The Koussevitzky Shed at Tanglewood, West St., Lenox, Mass.
When: 8:30 p.m. Thursday
Musical highlights: “Helping Hand,” “Where’s My Bow,” the hushed lullaby encore of “All Through the Night”
Length: 100 minutes
The crowd: Jam packed
Upcoming: Chris Thile returns to the area for a concert at the College of St. Rose’s Massry Center on Sunday, October 27. But if you can’t wait that long for some “melting pot music,” you might want to head to SPAC on Wednesday (August 21) to hear progressive banjo great Bela Fleck play his Concerto for Banjo and Orchestra with the Philadelphia Orchestra.